Jim pretty much said my thoughts on it. It's really stupid, but in an entertaining kind of way. Plus, it finally let the director get that giant robotic spider in the third act out of his system in a context where it's not Superman.

I just kind of remember it as being pretty forgettable more than outright bad and the only reason it stuck in my mind all these years is that Kevin Smith story about his superman script and I believe the producer demanding it have a Giant spider in it and then eventually putting a Giant Spider in WWW. It wasn't bad enough that I mind sitting down for another watch to remind myself why I didn't like it. Also don't mind rewatching the steamy Salma hayek scenes. I would also admit Kevin kline making literally any movie watchable. Without those two this movie would have been Jona Hex. Literally.

Does anyone else bristle at the thought of being forced to watch Megan Fox onscreen? It reminds me of that Seth Mcfarlane quote "It's ok we got time Adele is out there screaming at the audience."

Sorry Jim, But no..... Some films are just completely indefensible..... I was a little kid when I saw this in theaters, I was into over the top action and camp, and things not making sense ( I didn't know how things worked back then) and I still didn't like it..... I came out of a theater as a little kid disappointed with an action flick... That doesn't happen. But it did.

Uratoh:Jim pretty much said my thoughts on it. It's really stupid, but in an entertaining kind of way. Plus, it finally let the director get that giant robotic spider in the third act out of his system in a context where it's not Superman.

I am now required by law to present the video in question:

I like this movie. It is stupid, yes, but come on, giant robot spider.

DragonWright:This is one of those MDFs where my initial reaction was, "This needed defending?"

Who are these people who hate fun movies?

I know,right? But Smith turned down the role of Neo for this. And to be afir,his preformance,alongside the Steampunk coolness,(Check out the Penny Arcade Adventures games btw)not to mention the GIANT...MECH...SPIDER...is probably what made it so enjoyable. Guy's like Mr.Mendo in his Scott Pilgrim review. I expect tohate it,I come out with a different opinion;only here,I already kind of liked to begin with. (I was a kid when it first released,I saw it later,and I enjoyed it. I was somewhat surprised to learn many didn't like it. Until I saw Blockbuster buster's review of it,but hey. What are ya gonna do?)

Well, that was news to me. I never knew this was seen as a "bad" movie. I thought it was pretty good, and so did everyone else I know who has seen it. Off topic, I still don't get the whole concept of describing a movie as "fun" though. You are just sitting there watching it. I get how it can be fun to be with friends and watch a movie, but the movie itself being "fun"? I don't get it. Entertaining seems to be a better word for it, at least in my eyes.

I think this movie gets a bit of stick because it was marketed as the next big thing when it was largely forgettable fluff. i think the main problem was making James West a former slave. That's a heavy subject that would occasionally get thrown out into a wacky, over-the-top action movie. Sort of like a sitcom set in Auschwitz. Somehow it's just not funny.They did try to get mileage out of the racism card in WWW, didn't they? For humor mostly. Because jokes about lynching are funny.

I think if the movie could have settled on a tone and fire two thirds of its writing staff so that they wouldn't keep throwing in gags so they could brag to their family and friends about it, it might have been a lot better.

I actually like this film. Given I was a child the last time I saw it. I always assumed it was a kind of parody on westerns and action movies. I though the steam punk veneer gave it a unique charm. Why cant a movie be considered good if its only entertaining yet not awfully bright or what is considered Oscar material. When the actors, staff and director make a film with no heart and they dont have the passion or drive to make the film then its truly a bad film. This movies is not because it was not serious or a tried old dog.

Just my two and a half cents. Every time a movie which I think is good on merit alone and everyone else disregards I just get a bit angrier.

No, I'm not going to go with this one. I saw this movie twice (saw it once, then ended up with friends who wanted to see it one evening), and, well, it's got its moments, sure. But overall, what kills it is not the ridiculousness of things like the giant mechanical spider or the booby-trapped train but the fact that the main characters are, well, kind of unlikable and do stupid, arbitrary things for no reason but to get from a to b.

My favorite line in the thing is Ulysses S. Grant referring to West's style as "Shoot first, shoot later, shoot some more, and when everyone's dead try asking a question or two", and a good part of the reason that's funny is because it's bloody true.

Lowlights include Loveless going on about how he could devise a mechanical means of raping Rita (Selma Hayek's character), Rita knocking herself and one of the heroes unconscious in a random moment of panic (yay, we're borrowing one of the stupider plot elements from Star Trek V...), and the out-of-nowhere announcement that the guy they've been trying to rescue is not Rita's father. Also see West setting the sawblades in motion in a fit of stupid pique, Gordon encouraging a mob to lynch West, Loveless' inventory of the injuries that crippled him (which seems, shall we say, slightly out of place with this allegedly "slapstick" tone...)

Look, I'll agree it's not an awful movie despite the laundry list above. But good is a stretch. For every amusing or fun bit, there's at least one bit that's mean, stupid, badly paced or weirdly off-tone. Even Smith himself has expressed his displeasure with the thing; how can one argue with him?

Great episode. Pretty much how I look at the film too. It's stupid, but who cares? It's cool, and for the most part not cringe worthy. Actually pretty entertaining. I've got quite a lot of nostalgia about it from a specific time in my life.

Somehow growing up in the 90s I missed the hate for this then saw it on the tele about a year ago. I had to admit it was stupid, silly fun and was sort of amazed to learn that so many people hated it. Of course Waterworld and Avatar are my top guilty pleasure movies so....yeah.

I saw this in theaters when I was 13 and I didn't hate it, but I also didn't love it. I think a lot of the scrutiny for this film comes from the steampunk direction, which even to this day continue to sit on the fringe of popular culture, but back in 1999 it was still pretty niche. Another example of this would be 2003's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I wouldn't be surprised if Jim does an episode on that as well (although to be fair a lot of the criticism was because it was a film adaptation of a Alan Moore book and that's pretty much inevitable).

It's this movie's constant and embarrassing failed attempts at humor that makes me loath it. See also Men in Black 2, where I had serious trouble keeping my lunch down by how utterly putird the jokes were.

It's not the giant metal spider or any of the steampunk gizmos, it's the characters reaching Transformers levels of annoyance that make Wild Wild West so fucking... shit.

It also ripped off a stunt from Maverick, a much better Wild West action comedy.

And another installment of Movie Defense Force that consists mainly of Jim offhandedly dismissing minor criticisms that aren't actually the major failings while making blanket statements about how he likes it and thus it must actually secretly be a good movie that everyone just hates because it's the cool thing to do.

I've seen longer, better put together analyses of this film, made by people who actually know shit about movies, that detail why this movie is a pile of crap, Sterling saying "B-but it's actually good! Honest!" Isn't gonna change my mind about this unfunny turd.

Kenneth Branagh controls a giant metal spider rampaging through a steampunked out wild west. The movie could have been twice as terrible as it was and I would have still watched and enjoyed it. The acting, the scenery, the plot and the writing was way over the top crazy, which is exactly as it should be. I didn't realize people didn't like the movie until one day I brought up the professor character to someone and they went on to explain to me why the movie is considered a terrible failure. All of the arguments just sounded like "Wah, wah, I don't like to have fun and they were being far too silly and having far too much fun to be taken seriously." If terrible over-acting, poorly thought out ideas, plots that don't make sense and terrible set pieces made a movie unwatchable then Bruce Campbell wouldn't have a career, instead he's one of the most well known chins in B movie history.

I think steampunkiness is what saves this movie for me. Just compare it to something like MiB (first one), which is just miles better in quality, story, directing, jokes, acting (even from Smith) etc. Then again I doubt WWW is as mutilating of the original concept as much as I, robot or I am legend was.